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for a new generation of non-conformistsMon, 21 Jan 2019 14:19:00 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.3https://i2.wp.com/thecripplegate.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/cropped-20180607_BlueCircle_CripplegateLogo-1.png?fit=32%2C32&ssl=1The Cripplegatehttps://thecripplegate.com
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https://thecripplegate.com/seasoning-your-speech/#respondMon, 21 Jan 2019 08:01:00 +0000https://thecripplegate.com/?p=221979One treat I discovered in America was the Jelly Belly jelly bean. I was astounded that the beans tasted exactly like the product whose flavor they mimicked – so the blueberry jelly bean tastes just like an actual blueberry, as with the buttered popcorn, peanut butter and jelly, cherry-cola, coffee with milk and sugar, doughnuts, and countless other concoctions.

It became fashionable to serve visitors a bowl of regular beans, laced with a few putrid Bertie Botts in the same bowl, thus setting a ghastly trap for an unsuspecting guest.

In much the same way words come in countless varieties. You get sweet words, sour words, and downright noxious words. You can match your vocabulary to any situation. And speech can be wholesome and healing, or noxious and harmful.

Paul offers three flavors of words Christians should use in their speech…

1. SWEET

Colossians 4:6 Let your speech always be gracious,…

Gracious, or “filled with grace” means “attractive, that which delights and charms.”

Some people are always edifying to listen to. Jesus had this characteristic:
Luke 4: 22 And all spoke well of him and marveled at the gracious words that were coming from his mouth.

Graciousness is the sweetness of speech spoken of in Proverbs 16: 24 Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body.

Conversations with Christians should never leave a bitter aftertaste, like a rotten egg jelly bean, but should always produce a pleasant sweetness. Christians can converse with unbelievers about the weather, sport, politics, and movies, making their conversation pleasant and informed, while still using opportunities to bear witness to the grace of God in their lives.

Your speech should always reflect the grace of salvation in your life. This means conversation should be free of gossip, rude joking, swearing, snide comments, and blasphemy.

Elsewhere Paul teaches: Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. (Eph 4:29)

What salt does for a meal, wisdom does for words: it flavors it for consumption and makes it easier to digest. Wisdom with our speech can prevent corrupting talk and make what we have to say easier to receive. This is especially needed when we have a hard truth to share with someone.

Do your words leave people with indigestion?

In Greek the idiom of salty speech also refers to wit and humor. Some people feel there is an ideal, ‘Christianese’ speech style which is serious and somber. But God created us all differently, with a variety of expressions and tastes. Christians don’t have to be bland and boring. Humor is a gift from God to make our conversation winsome and effective, while still telling the truth.

So season your speech with the appropriate flavor for the occasion. Which brings us to…

3. SUITABLE
Colossians 4:6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.

Ephesians 4:29: Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion…

There is no ‘one size fits all’ type of speech. You can’t rehearse a pat answer for every situation. It’s about being appropriate to the occasion.

Prov 26: 4-5 Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.
Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.

So, sometimes you need to speak up and other times you need to bite your tongue.
Sometimes you need to be firm, other times gentle, depending on the person.

1 Thess 5: 14 And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.

What I do in the pulpit is appropriate for the public proclamation of God’s word. But one on one, I need to speak differently. Is the person hurting, confused, or rebellious? Those three conditions require different medicines.

And sometimes the best speech is no speech: Eccl 3: 7 [There is] a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
Prov 17: 28 Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise; when he closes his lips, he is deemed intelligent.

So Christian, if your speech has been ungracious and offensive, ask God for forgiveness, ask him to change your heart so that you will have only sweet, salty, and suitable speech to his glory. And work hard at eliminating the earwax and boogers from your conversation.

The Corinthians had a tolerance problem. Earlier in the chapter, Paul said something similar. “For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.” They bear with false teaching. They tolerate the intolerable.

A
Redefinition of Tolerance

In the last 10 to 15 years, the worldview of postmodernism has come to dominate the collective intellectual consciousness of western society. And perhaps the pinnaclevirtue of postmodernism is tolerance.

Now, contemporary postmodern tolerance is not what English-speaking peoples have always understood the word tolerance to mean. A person was judged to be tolerant if, though he held to his views strongly, believed them to be absolute truth, and believed just as strongly that all other mutually exclusive views were absolutely wrong, he nevertheless insisted that others had the right to disagree with his deeply-held convictions. He believed in his convictions unwaveringly, and even believed that everyone else should believe what he believed. But he didn’t demand agreement or try to coerce consensus. He tolerated the existence of differing opinions, even on what he believed was non-negotiable truth. The old view of tolerance was well-captured in the oft-quoted aphorism, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

But the postmodern version of tolerance is of a totally different sort. To today’s culture, tolerance is no longer the idea that wrong views, though wrong, nevertheless have the right to exist and to be heard in public discourse. Now, you’re only tolerant if you believe that no position is any more or less true, right, or valid than any other view. In his book, The Intolerance of Tolerance, D. A. Carson explains the shift this way:

“The new tolerance suggests that actually accepting another’s position means believing that position to be true, or at least as true as your own. We move from allowing the free expression of contrary opinions to the acceptance of all opinions; we leap from permitting the articulation of beliefs and claims with which we do not agree to asserting that all beliefs and claims are equally valid.” (3–4)

And with that revisionist definition of tolerance
comes also a revisionist definition of intolerance.
Which is a big deal. Because there are few worse charges to be accused of today
than being intolerant. Since tolerance no longer means tolerating the existence
of opposing views but instead asserting that all views are equally valid,
intolerance is disagreeing with the notion that no one position is more true,
valid, or trustworthy than another. If you insist that someone is unambiguously
and unequivocally wrong about something, you are intolerant. You’re an uncharitable, arrogant bully. Perhaps even
a bigot.

The
Embrace of Self-Defeating Relativism

Do you recognize what the central philosophical underpinning of that worldview is? It’s relativism—the rejection of absolute truth itself. If no one claim is more true or right than any other, there is no such thing as absolute truth at all. And the postmodernists don’t dispute this. In 1995, the United Nations released what is called the Declaration on Principles of Tolerance, and in Article 1 on the meaning of tolerance, it asserts that tolerance “involves the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism.” As Carson says, one can’t help but observe that that assertion sounds quite a bit dogmatic and absolute!

And of course, that is the failure of all forms of relativism: relativism is hopelessly inconsistent, because the claim that there is no absolute truth is itself an absolute statement. If someone comes up to you and says, “There is no absolute truth!” just ask them, “Is that absolutely true?”

It is rationally baseless. Such a worldview
immediately collapses under its own weight. And so Carson observes, “Under the
new aegis of this new tolerance, no absolutism is permitted, except for the
absolute prohibition of absolutism. Tolerance rules, except that there must be
no tolerance for those who disagree with this peculiar definition of tolerance”
(13). Ironically, but inevitably for all systems that are based on relativism,
what is now called tolerance is actually what the world has always known as
intolerance.

The
Church Apes the World

And because the church inexorably imitates and apes
the foolish fashions of the world—always ostensibly as a misguided means of
attracting the world—contemporary evangelicalism has imbibed these very
redefinitions and philosophical presuppositions. So many professing Christians are
scared to death to offend the sensibilities of the postmodern culture. For
them, the worst thing in the world is to be called intolerant. And so what has
happened? They have subtly, maybe even in some cases unintelligibly, abandoned
their commitment to the absolute truth of Scripture, in favor of being more
tolerant of a “diversity of opinions.”

People rise up in the church and begin teaching doctrine
that does not accord with the pattern of sound words entrusted to us in
Scripture. Others stand up against that error and criticize it for not aligning
with biblical truth. Yet still other men push back against that and say, “Hey, let’s not be so rigid and dogmatic, OK? These folks
are aiming to ground their teachings in Scripture; they just have a different
interpretation than you do. Who’s to say that our interpretation is better than
their interpretation? After all, the text isn’t all that clear anyway. We
should hear them out. We should give them a platform. We ought to be tolerant of a diversity of
views.”

This is what happened in the Corinthian church. The
false apostles showed up when Paul was miles away, and they began sowing doubt
about the integrity of his character and the truth of his Gospel among the
believers there. And when the Corinthians first discerned that that was going
on, they should have risen up and rejected these men for the wolves that they
were.

But what happened? They flashed their ‘letters of
commendation.’ They touted their Jewish heritage and connection to the Jewish
church. They bragged on their eloquence and their strong leadership. They
boasted in their high-priced honorariums, and their large fanbase, and the bevy
of their ministerial successes. And the Corinthians were taken in! And so
they tolerated the
subtle deviations from the truth. And when those subtle deviations became more
obvious deviations from the truth, they tolerated those as well. And when the
toleration of little compromise after little compromise led to their
enslavement, their being devoured, and taken advantage of, and even physically
assaulted—by these fools who preach another Jesus, and a different spirit, and
a different gospel—they tolerated it.
They bore it beautifully.

Jesus,
the Intolerant

This text teaches us, dear reader, that there is a
limit to biblical tolerance. There are certain things that we simply must not
tolerate in the church. You say, “But Mike, wasn’t Jesus the supreme example of
tolerance? He refused no one! He welcomed everyone to Himself!” Not exactly.

In Revelation chapter 2, Jesus commends the
church of Thyatira for their deeds, their love, their faith, their service, and
their perseverance. Whereas the church of Ephesus needed to repent and do the
deeds she did at first (Rev 2:4–5), Jesus said that Thyatira’s “deeds of late
are greater than at first” (Rev 2:19). But—as Kevin DeYoung has put it—though
Thyatira was loving, their love could be undiscerning and blindly affirming. Consider
what Jesus says in verse 20: “But I have this against you, that you tolerate
the woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, and she teaches and leads My
bond-servants astray so that they commit acts of immorality.”

Jesus is intolerant of Thyatira’s tolerance of error
and immorality! And He promises severe judgment for it. Verse 22: “Behold, I
will throw her on abed of sickness, and those who commit adultery
with her into great tribulation, unless they repent of her deeds. And I will
kill her children with pestilence, and all the churches will know that I am He
who searches the minds and hearts.”

Friends, the Jesus of Revelation 2 is not the Jesus of postmodern leftism. The real Jesus is decidedly intolerant of false doctrine and moral relativism. And for those Christians, and churches, and ministries who compromise the Word of God in an effort to be more “tolerant” and more “affirming” than Jesus is—on whatever issue—they will find themselves under the judgment of the One whose eyes are like a flame of fire, whose feet are like burnished bronze (Rev 2:18), whose robe is dipped in blood, and who strikes down the nations with the sword of His mouth (Rev 19:13, 15).

Truth
is Intolerant of Error

Martin Luther said it well when he wrote, “I am not
permitted to let my love be so merciful as to tolerate and endure false
doctrine. When faith and doctrine are concerned and endangered, neither love
nor patience are in order. … When these are concerned, neither toleration nor
mercy are in order, but only anger, dispute, and destruction—to be sure, only
with the Word of God as our weapon.”

Truth is intolerant of error. And we are not permitted
to tolerate the preaching of error in the name of truth. Rather we are, 2
Corinthians 10:5, to “destroy speculations and every lofty thing raised up
against the knowledge of God, and [to] take every thought captive to the
obedience of Christ.”

Not by force, of course. Not by coercion. We understand that in a fallen world, the whole of which lies in the power of the evil one (1 John 5:19), error must exist alongside the truth. As Christians, we do not seek, as some do, to outlaw from the public square every viewpoint but our own. We tolerate the existence of different ideas, and worldviews, and ways of life.

We
Will Not Bow

But behind the pulpit—in Christ’s Church—there is one rule for the lives of Christ’s
people. There is one sovereign
standard that norms the thinking and the beliefs of the followers of Jesus, to
the exclusion of all others. And that
is Scripture alone. We must never so adopt the world’s notion of tolerance that we allow anything to rule our faith and practice
but the voice of our Good Shepherd as spoken in His Word. We bow to Him alone.

Christ is our King. Scripture is our law. And in ways that have not been true in the past, Scripture and the laws of our country now collide head on. And we’re going to feel it. We are the target now. […]

I ran through my Bible the other day, just looking for everywhere I could find the term “bow down.” It’s all over the Old Testament. […] Unfaithful people bowed down before idols and godless kings. But faithful people did not bow down. Mordecai did not bow down. Daniel did not bow down. His friends did not bow down. Jesus did not bow down. Paul did not bow down.

These are going to be very challenging days. But we will not bow. We will be gracious, and we will be loving, but we will render to God what is God’s.

This week, Immanuel Christian School (a ministry of the church I pastor) was in the news because of our code of conduct, which requires parents to agree that their kids will be educated according to our church’s statement of faith. Our church’s doctrinal statement is long; for a Bible church it is surprisingly detailed. For that reason, the school spells out some of the practical implications of sending students to ICS. The section that has caught the most flack is obviously the one on sexual ethics.

Keep in mind, this is a K-8 school (although we are starting a high school next year). The notion that students should be able to be in sexual relationships in elementary school is perverse, of course, but largely beside the point. The point, at least in some of the news stories on this, seems to be that because of our statement of faith, “not all students are welcome.”

I, like Jude, considered writing a post today explaining why requiring students and faculty to adhere to a Christian statement of faith is not, in fact, discrimination. Rather than being an expression of hatred, it is actually an expression of love to our students, as well as to potential families, who at least know what we are about upfront.

But honestly, those posts have been written a hundred times…nay, a thousand times. At this point, the faux shock that Christian schools hire Christian teachers is stale, and replying to it even more so.

On the other hand, what does interest me is what this controversy highlights about the nature of Christian schools, and why it is important for Christian schools to understand exactly what their mission is. I have taught at three different Christian schools, and all three of them had different missions, which all would affect how they would view the issue of allowing homosexual students. This perspective has helped me see why it is critical to have a clear understanding of how a Christian school sees its role in the world.

As I understand it, there are three basic kinds of Christian
schools:

Open to ALL—This kind
of school teaches biblical truth to the world. They view their role in the
community as evangelistic. They have open enrollment, and do not expect parents
or students to subscribe to their doctrinal beliefs. Obviously, parents and
students have to consent to having certain doctrine taught, but it is taught without
the pre-requisite of faith. In other words, non-believers can send their kids
to the school for the education, and the school is eager to give that education
as a form of evangelism. A school like this would welcome atheists, Mormons,
Catholics, etc., so long as they agreed not to be argumentative.

The advantage of this kind of school is that it is effective
at reaching the lost. The disadvantage is that there is often tension with
parents and students over things like biblical ethics. My experience at this kind
of school was positive, but it made me appreciate its limitations.

Open to CHRISTIAN
STUDENTS—This type of school requires students to agree to the statement of
faith (as much as they are able). Obviously there is a sliding scale or
credibility here as you move from kindergarten to high school, which is one of
the reasons I am a credo-baptist. The idea in this kind of school is that by
attending, the students are agreeing to not just receive instruction form the doctrinal perspectives on the school,
but to believe it. A school like this
would not allow students who are professing non-Christians to attend. A high
schooler who shows up one day and declares he just isn’t down with the whole
Jesus thing would be asked to leave, regardless of his parent’s faith.

The advantage to this kind of school is that it lends itself
to a shared purpose with the faculty and students. When I taught at a school
like this, there was rich fellowship and Christian friendships which can last a
life-time. From my perspective the disadvantage, especially in high school, was
a sense of hypocrisy with some students that could limit spiritual growth. If a
student confessed that they were not a Christian, or questioned the deity of
Christ (for example), that conversation had hanging in the background the
threat of expulsion (although the few times this happened, the situations were
always handled with grace and wisdom—I never remember any hard feelings).

Open to CHRISTIAN
FAMILIES. This type of school sees its mission as helping Christian parents
educate their children. For a family to send their students there, the parents
(or at least one of them) needs to not only agree to have their kids taught
from the perspective of the statement of faith, but needs to actually believe it
themselves. A school with this mission operates by helping the church by
providing education to the church’s students.

The advantage here is a clear mission, led by Christians, to
equip Christian families in the education of their children. There is a sense
of unity with parents, and a sense of growth with the kids, as they work out
their understanding of faith in the context of a Christian community. The
disadvantage is that it is not entirely evangelistic, as it has its focus on
Christian families.

Notice that in each category of school here, lines have to be drawn. How much of the statement
of faith to parents need to believe? How much leeway is allowed for students to
question their faith? When does openly questioning the schools theology cross
the line from learning and become antagonism?

Those are tough questions to answer, and vary student by
student, school by school. But understanding what kind of Christian school it
is goes a long way in giving clarity to parents and students about what is and
is not expected of them.

If you are a parent considering a Christian school, you should
ask which category it falls into. That way you can be aware of its limitations in
order to best embrace its strengths.

The preacher must never be dull, and he must never be boring…there is something radically wrong with dull and boring preachers.

How can a man be dull when he is handling such themes? I would say that a “dull preacher” is a contradiction in terms; if he is dull he is not a preacher. He may stand in a pulpit and talk, but he is certainly not a preacher.

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Preachers and Preaching

But, Lloyd-Jones is right. I’ve had to assess what is “radically wrong” with myself at times. There is something wrong with my boring preaching.

What is wrong with boring preaching?

As the Doctor said, the Bible is not boring. So, preaching shouldn’t be either. And when we stand up to preach, we’re addressing our neighbor. We are to love our neighbor. One way to love them is to make preaching engaging. Boring preaching also communicates error about the Bible; that it is boring, irrelevant, powerless. Whatever the Bible is, it is not those things. For those reasons, preaching should not be boring.

I want to do some justice to the Bible. I want to love my neighbor. And I don’t want to communicate error about the thrill of God and his word. I want to grow in my preaching. These are some things that I hope will help me do so.

How we might avoid boring preaching:

Preach expositionally.

Expositional preaching is engaging because you are studying a new passage each week. There is a progression in the text; a logical flow that is visible. When a pastor preaches expositionally, it draws the congregation together on a journey through the book of the Bible. This will make for more engaging preaching.

2. Study hard for sermons.

The Bible is not boring. Every book is filled with engaging events, twists, irony, and gripping truths. But, these things are not always immediately visible. Often we have to work hard to find them and mine them out. It’s like a good hike in the mountains. Almost always, the most gripping vistas and stunning views are not towards the beginning, but the end. There is usually some lookout; some peak or inspiring point, but you have to work to get there. So it is in sermon preparation. Our job is to work to get to that stunning vista in the text and bring it to the congregation. Doing so will avoid boring preaching. Every text has something engaging in it. We need to find it and preach.

3. Be engaged.

God made us with multiple faculties. We naturally use these when we are speaking about something exciting. If we were chased by a bear in the woods, we will re-narrate the event to loved ones with raised eyebrows, hand and arm motions, voice inflection, body movement, and such. We ought to do the same when preaching.

Far more compelling than a bear, Scripture is the living word of God. It must be preached as such. We ought to engage our whole being in preaching. If it does not come naturally, then pray that it will. Study Scripture until it grips you. If needed, practice in front of the mirror and get feedback. Do what it takes to be engaged yourself in the text. Forget about what people think in this respect. Be absorbed in the text and preach.

4. Love those to whom you preach.

When a loved one is in the hospital, that grips us. We go, we visit, we weep, we hold, we speak, we pray. The way we interact with them is likely engaging. Why? Because we love them. We give ourselves to them in that moment. Similarly, imagine a dad speaking to his son as he drops him off at college in the next state. He pours out his heart. He exhorts him. He encourages and assures him. The love that the father has for his son is discernible by the son.

Love for those to whom you preach will come out. And it’s engaging. You have emotion for them. You have an urgency for them. You have a patience with them. You desperately want them to experience the change, power, and encouragement of the text. Whether it is a rebuke, comfort, or exhortation, love for the hearers will make for engaging preaching. Visitors, too, will discern this.

5. Use illustrations.

Public speakers over the centuries have understood that picturesque language effortlessly grabs an audience. Even more, God has spoken to us with abundant word pictures in the 66 books of Scripture. Consider a few examples. “They will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks” (Isa. 2:4). “Sheol has enlarged its throat and opens its mouth without measure” (Isa. 5:14). “Behold, a sower went out to sow…” (Matt. 13:3). “When you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you…” (Matt. 6:2). “Let not him who girds on his armor boast like him who takes it off” (1 Kings 20:11). Scripture could have said, “War will end,” “Many will die,” “Not all will be saved,” “Don’t show off,” and, “Don’t brag,” respectively, but word pictures are far more picturesque and memorable in a way that grabs the reader. Word pictures and illustrations which help clarify truth effortlessly lure in the hearer like a flashing spinner on a fishing line does a hungry fish.

6. Be clear

The other day, I
popped on a movie that my kids mentioned. It was nothing more than characters
yelling, screaming, and carrying on chaotically amidst a change of screen every
second or two. I tried to follow and engage, but there was no logic to it.
Clarity is a necessity to maintain curiosity. If it’s unclear what a preacher
is saying or where he’s going, attention will wane. It’s how the mind works.

As someone (John MacArthur?) once said, “We must study ourselves clear.” Scripture is clear. Every text is logical, having a purpose, point, and flow. Preachers must wrestle with the text until it’s clear to them. But we mustn’t stop there. We must labor to explain, illustrate, and apply in a way that is also clear. Doing so will reduce the risk of boring preaching.

7. Show clear direction

Part of what makes a great hike engaging is a clear direction. You’ve told those you are guiding where you are, where you are going, how you’re going to get there, and the sites you’ll encounter along the way. They follow and are engaged because they see where things are headed. So it is in preaching. Listeners should have some idea of where we are headed. They should be able to say, “OK, I see how we got there.” When they do, they will be more engaged.

8. Say things in different ways.

Truths of the Bible are forever fixed, thankfully. God is immutable. However, under the inspiration of the Spirit, biblical writers express truths in a variety of ways. For example, the apostle Paul says, “Christ died for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3). Expressing the same truth, Peter says, “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross” (1 Pet. 2:24). Similarly, John writes, observing the heavenly scene, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain” (Rev. 5:12). Isaiah expresses it this way: “He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening of our peace fell upon Him” (Isa. 53:5). Four different writers express the same truth but in different ways. We as preachers ought to work to do the same, whether we’re speaking of the atonement, the standard of God’s law, repentance, or the end times. It takes work, but it is possible. We can get ideas on how to do so simply by reading Scripture and reading how other men have expressed these truths. Doing so will avoid boring preaching.

9. Listen to gifted preachers

We can be instructed in the mechanics of preaching, but there are few things that match seeing it done. That’s why we do well to listen to gifted preachers. Engaging preachers are engaging for a reason. Their sermons will feature many of the essential ingredients of appealing preaching.

10. Get sermon feedback

This side of heaven, we cannot say that we have arrived in knowing all there is to know about preaching. If we’re humble enough to admit it, we always have something to learn. Those skilled in their trade usually are because they see themselves as perpetual students. But sometimes it’s hard to see how we need to grow ourselves. For that reason, we ought to recruit sermon evaluation at times. These people can serve as mirrors to help us see, for better or worse, our preaching. When an honest mirror is held up, we’ll see the blemishes more clearly, so that we can improve our preaching.

11. Be fired up

I often went to
the Saturday football games at the large state university I attended. Our first
few years, we hardly won a game. But then things changed. We started winning.
The student section was no longer half empty. As the team started scoring
points and winning, fans would effortlessly jump up and down, yell, hi-five,
and paint themselves up at every game. They were fired up and they
unembarassingly showed it.

We get pumped up over all sorts of things. We get a raise and hi-five our spouse. Our favorite team wins and we jump up and down in front of the TV. Our kid wins his race and we test the strength of our lungs and larynx. Should it not be this way when preaching the most important truths in the universe? Some don’t think so, it seems. It appears that some believe preachers proclaiming the words of His Majesty should be partially comatose. No way. If it is normal to get fired up about some guys chasing a ball around, how much more the truths of Almighty God?

12. Pray

Let’s not kid ourselves. God’s truth is so great and we are so weak, we’re going to need his power to preach something halfway helpful and engaging. That’s why we need prayer. Pray for yourself. Pray for your godliness. Pray for your study. Pray for illumination. Pray for your hearers; for salvation, sanctification, and illumination. Pray against Satan. Pray, and likely your preaching will not be boring.

I don’t want to bore my audience when I preach. That would be misrepresenting my great and glorious God. I hope to apply these principles, and more, so as to do some justice to the captivating content of his word.

]]>https://thecripplegate.com/boring-preaching/feed/0221941https://thecripplegate.com/boring-preaching/The Cripplegate’s Top Five Books We Read in 2018http://feeds.thecripplegate.com/~r/TheCripplegate/~3/Xs3rcx6OO6M/
https://thecripplegate.com/five-books-we-read-in-2018/#respondTue, 15 Jan 2019 09:01:18 +0000https://thecripplegate.com/?p=221928Reading is perhaps the greatest tool God gives us to aid us in our sanctification. The Bible is the greatest book, and without it, we couldn’t be saved. It should be the bread and butter of our sanctification. But God has also gifted certain people with the ability to write in a way that challenges our thoughts and deepens our love for Christ.

Reading other people humbles you, reminds you that you don’t know as much as you think you do, and helps you to think better, write better and communicate better.

I asked the other regular writers on the Cripplegate if there was a book that stood out that they read in 2018 and here is our answer.

Though I would not assert that 12 Rules was the most enjoyable read of the year, I felt it was an important book for me to interact with. Annoying aspects of the author include his mingling of Jungian thought, evolutionary philosophy, and even mythology as authoritative sources for his views. I also hate it when he talks about the Bible as a peer of secular sources. But all that said, many of Peterson’s ideas are remarkably (and accidentally) biblical. I liked the book as an exhibit proving the “all truth is God’s truth” maxim. As a psychologist, Peterson is articulating research that establishes empirically what Bible readers have known for millennia. The reason the book is useful for Christians is the same reason evidential apologetics can be: although evidences don’t prove our faith, they reinforce the faith of those who are already committed to believe the Bible. Peterson’s defenses of discipline for children, of gender distinctions, and of male leadership in marriage, are all examples of behavioral science agreeing with biblical wisdom. Psychologists are late to the truth party, but at least they’re starting to show up. We can thank Peterson for inviting them in.

I have been on a soapbox lately about Hospitality. Right around the time I wrote my blog post, I was made aware of this new book by Rosaria Butterfield. I’m sure you’ve heard of her by now, as a former professor at Syracuse University who was in a Lesbian relationship and who now is married and a homeschool mom. Rosaria was transformed through the Gospel shared with her by a pastor and his wife who every week for years had her over for dinner and studied the Bible with her. This not only transformed her life and God used it to lead her to Himself, but it set the tone for Rosaria’s life as a Christian. Her books walks the reader through her experience with hospitality as well as convincing the reader about the importance of hospitality, and how it is an essential part of preaching the Gospel to the lost. It is an incredibly convicting book that will challenge your love for the lost, and especially for your neighbors. We live in a day and age where privacy is a right, but Rosaria calls us to practice radically ordinary hospitality and to open our homes to those around us. I recommend this book to any Christian with one disclaimer, you might feel like you’re a bad Christian after reading it, and you may perhaps feel like the challenge is too high to follow. I would recommend reading a little bit at a time and start small. If you never have anyone over, have someone over once a month. If you do it once a month consider once a week. And if you never have neighbors over, well it’s time to begin.

The issue of race has experienced no small stir in recent days. It’s for that reason that I’m thankful for the recently released book, A Biblical Answer for Racial Unity, by Kress publishers. The book is the result of nine biblical expositions and one biographical survey on the topic from the Truth in Love conference held at Founders Baptist Church in Spring, Texas about a year ago. Authors include Richard Caldwell, H.B. Charles Jr., Danny Akin, Juan Sanchez, Jim Hamilton, Owen Strachan, Carl Hargrove, and Christian George. Overall, there is one thing that encouraged me most about the book: when addressing racial issues, the writers used lots of Bible. One would think that is a given. However, among many professing believers, while there has been much discussion of social issues, there seems to be less Bible in the mix. When that’s the case, we have gone astray. I’m thankful, however, that A Biblical Answer for Racial Unity is an exception, thus living up to its title.

Honorable mention also goes out to the Martyn Lloyd-Jones classic, Preaching and Preachers, a must read for those who preach.

“Hair,” Jayber Crow points out, “is like people: both are renewable resources.” This observation from a prematurely balding barber is meant to be ironic. Jayber Crow, a novel by Wendell Berry, is the best book I read in 2018. Jayber—a seminary drop-out who became the town barber in fictional Port William, Kentucky—is really the town’s pastor. An astute observer of life, Jayber loves both his town and the people he serves there. He may have been expelled from seminary, but he never walked away from his love for the people of Port William. This book made me a better pastor by provoking me to be a better student of people. Crow’s observations on Christianity—particularly seminary students and professors—are convicting. His sense of calling is admirable, matched by Berry’s ability to develop well-rounded characters; the more you know the inhabitants of Port William, the more you appreciate the complexity and contradictions inside of every person. Some of life makes you laugh out loud, some of it makes you cry, and some of it makes you want to take a nap outdoors. Jayber shows his love for people by doing all three. At the end of it, it will make any pastor ask himself: “is it better for the kingdom that I am a pastor? Or would I serve people better as a barber?” Jayber shows us that it is all a matter of calling, and is (perhaps) more up to the sovereignty of God than even Jayber would be comfortable with.

*I have to give a theological shout out to Retrieving Eternal Generation, edited by Fred Sanders and Scott Swain. That was the best theological book I read this year.

The best book that I’ve finished in 2018 (I began it years earlier, actually) was From Heaven He Came and Sought Her, edited by David and Jonathan Gibson. It’s a 700-page collection of essays from various experts in their fields all aimed at defending the doctrine of definite atonement. It’s divided into four parts: historical, biblical, theological, and practical/pastoral, and it presents what amounts to be an unassailable defense of particular redemption. It demonstrates that, while it hasn’t always been the majority view, particular redemption does have a historical-theological lineage tracing back to the early church. It engages with the whole of Scripture, bringing passages to bear on the discussions that are normally ignored but without neglecting the passages that are often debated. It leaves no objection unanswered and demonstrates that definite atonement is the only position in the discussion that achieves genuine theological consistency. And it also shows how such a position strengthens and motivates personal worship, holiness, evangelism, and preaching. I often hear people say something like, “While it seems to make theological sense, I can’t see definite atonement from the biblical text.” This is a book that will not only show you definite atonement in the biblical text, but will explain why the above is actually an unintelligible thing to say. It’s a book that lets you know that you don’t have to be embarrassed to be a five-point Calvinist, because it really is the teaching of Scripture. You’ll come away not only better informed and equipped to defend the truth about the extent of the atonement; you’ll come away in worshipful awe of the power of the cross that lies at the heart of the Christian faith. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

What book did God use in your life in 2018?

]]>https://thecripplegate.com/five-books-we-read-in-2018/feed/0221928https://thecripplegate.com/five-books-we-read-in-2018/Love is Blind: Loving the Unseen Saviorhttp://feeds.thecripplegate.com/~r/TheCripplegate/~3/BrdPsCyWtx4/
https://thecripplegate.com/love-is-blind-loving-the-unseen-savior/#commentsMon, 14 Jan 2019 09:00:00 +0000https://thecripplegate.com/?p=221921In the 19th Century French chemist, Louis Pasteur, discovered that under our very noses exists a whole realm of life invisible to the naked eye. His research revealed that our bodies are coated in, and inhabited by, a bustling ecosystem of organisms called microbes.

Bill Bryson humorously warns: “There is no point trying to hide from your bacteria, for they are on you and around you always, in numbers you can’t conceive of. If you are in good health and averagely diligent about your hygiene, you will have a herd of about one trillion bacteria grazing on your fleshy plains– about one hundred thousand of them on every square centimetre of skin. … They are, in short, a big part of us. From the bacteria’s point of view, of course, we are a rather small part of them… This is their planet, and we are only on it because they allow us to be.”

What profit can come from such a skin-crawling reminder? Absolutely nothing.

But there is a reminder of things unseen that is very helpful to your spiritual life, which we find in 1 Peter 1:6-9 as the Apostle encourages Christians beset by tempestuous trials.

1. Saving Faith Loves the Unseen Savior

1 Peter 1:8Though you have not seen him, you love him.

I have not seen Jesus, and neither have you. The Bible teaches that Jesus ascended into Heaven and will return in such a way that everyone will get to see him on the same day.

But does that mean we can’t love him?

Peter insists that: Though you have not seen him, you love him.

Peter’s readers had not been as privileged as Peter, who had been personally discipled by Jesus for three years. And yet their love for Christ was no less real. Love for Christ is not based on the normal reasons we love other people.

The reasons we love Jesus have nothing to do with his personality, or looks, or charisma, or preaching style, or humor. We love him because of who he is and what he’s done for us.

– Who he is. You love your relatives, not because of what they are like, but because of who they are: your family. Jesus is the Son of God, so children of God are in a family relationship with Jesus.

John 8:42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here.”

– What he’s done. He loved us to the point of dying for our sins to forgive us.

1 John 4:19We love because he first loved us.

But what does it mean to love Jesus?

Christianity is not about a way of life. It is not merely about how you speak and how much you sacrifice and about avoiding pleasure and choosing the right thing to do. It is not about looking after the poor and it is not about performing kind actions and being a decent person.

Christianity is about one thing and one thing only: Jesus Christ.

Loving Christ is what you were made to do.

But what does it mean to love Jesus? Love to Jesus is shown through your devotion and obedience.

–Devotion to Jesus – which includes expressions of love from the heart such as prayer, singing, and actions you do out of love for him.

–Obedience to Jesus – John 14: 23Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”

1 John 5: 3For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

2. Saving Faith Believes the Unseen Savior

1 Peter 1:8b … Though you do not now see him, you believe in him

Our relationship with Christ is based on something that happened in history, which we believe: the crucifixion and resurrection.

If you don’t believe what happened, then the rest of the relationship is meaningless. This is another way an unseen reality shapes our lives.

Hebrews 11:1Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Do you trust the source of the information about the events? 2 Tim 3:16 tells us that every word of Scripture is breathed out by God. If you believe that, then you don’t need any more evidence.

“Jesus loves me this I know for the Bible tells me so.”

3. Saving Faith Rejoices in the Unseen Savior

1 Peter 1: 8c …Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Faith in Jesus comes with the promise of a future unmitigated joy.
If your faith is real, you regard the future promises as reality and the result is great joy.

Salvation is as sure as the Savior is. If you believe in him, you will be saved. You can take it to the bank. It should cause joy and hope and encouragement.

Habakkuk 3:17-18Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

If you are not a child of God you might scoff at the idea of loving a Savior you have not seen and believing in events you did not witness and you have no reason for joy. But if you are a child of God then your faith loves your Savior – even though you have not seen him, your faith believes that he died for your sin and rose again and your faith rejoices with great joy because your future salvation is secure.

It’s hard to believe that two and a half years have passed since the discussion concerning the eternal functional subordination of the Son took the evangelical blogosphere by storm in the Summer of 2016. Perhaps still more difficult to believe is that, with the veritable mountain of blog posts and articles written since then, I still get asked about this issue at least every other week.

The first post I wrote on the topic was my attempt to summarize the issues at play. I was just trying to get a handle on what was and was not being argued, and definitely felt like I needed to understand more before I came down on one side or the other. A few days later, I wrote a follow-up post pushing for clarity on some specific questions in the debate. And even though it had only been a few days, I could discern that I was leaning in the non-EFS direction—which is to say, the direction of classic Trinitarian orthodoxy—but I was still ambivalent about it.

In the months (and now two and a half years) that followed,
though, I’ve landed firmly. And so I thought I’d write a post summarizing my position
on the issue. I’ve become convinced that there can be no eternal relations of
authority and submission ad intra, within the life of the Trinity from
eternity, because (1) submission is the subjection of one will to another and
therefore it requires multiple faculties of will; because (2) will is a
property of nature, not person, and thus two wills require two natures; and (3)
there is only one nature in the Godhead. There can be no submission or
subjection within the Godhead ad intra without
there being a distinction of nature. The reason the incarnate Son can submit to
the Father (which, of course, everyone grants is the case) is because He has
added a human nature (and thus a human will) to His divine nature, which
He possesses in perpetuity (Col 2:9; cf. 1 Cor 15:28). Before He assumed a
human nature in the incarnation, there is no subjection of the Son’s will to
the Father. God is one God; each person of the Trinity fully subsists in the
single, simple, undivided divine essence. Submission ad intra threatens the essential oneness of God.

That position depends on the truthfulness of the key premises
in the previous paragraph: namely, that submission requires two faculties of will,
and that will is a faculty that is properly predicated of a nature (of which there is only one in
the Godhead), not a person (of which
there are three in the Godhead). How can we go about proving the validity of
these two premises?

The
Nature of Submission

This debate consists in the discussion of eternal
functional subordination (EFS), or
eternal relations of authority and submission
(ERAS), and so we have to be clear on what subordination and submission mean. Submission seems to be the more
acceptable term even from the EFS guys, so I’ll focus on that.

In the first place then, it seems virtually tautological to say that submission entails the subjection of one will to another. That’s just what submission is. When we speak of submission, we ordinarily mean to convey the idea of the subjection of one will to another. If that’s too anecdotal for you, the Oxford English Dictionary defines submission as “the action of accepting or yielding to a superior force or to the will or authority of another person.” BDAG’s entries for hupotagē (submissiveness, subjection) and hupotassō (to submit) are consistent with this.

It is rather inescapable. For me to submit to someone is
to subject my will to their will. And therefore, submission requires multiple faculties
of will. If someone has submitted (Ha!) a compelling argument for why that’s
not the case, I haven’t seen it.

Will
is a Property of Nature, Not Person

“OK, so submission requires multiple wills. Why does
that matter?” Well, since (a) will is a property of nature, not person, and
since (b) there is only one nature in the Godhead, there can only be one
faculty of willing in the Godhead, which makes submission impossible. “But how do
we know that will is a property of a nature and not a person? If will is a
property of person, then each person of the Trinity can have His own will, and
submission makes total sense.”

The way we can discern whether will is a property of nature or person is to consider the person of the incarnate Christ. Jesus is one person in whom subsists two natures, a divine nature and a human nature. He is not two persons, as the Nestorians taught, nor does He have just one nature (whether wholly divine, wholly human, or some amalgam of the two), as the monophysites and Eutychians taught. He is, as Chalcedon has put it:

“one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten; acknowledged in two natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the difference of the Natures being in no way removed because of the Union, but rather the properties of each Nature being preserved, and both concurring into One Person and One Hypostasis; not as though He were parted or divided into Two Persons, but One and the Self-same Son and Only-begotten God, Word, Lord, Jesus Christ.”

Now, if will were a metaphysical faculty properly predicated of a person and not a nature, we would expect Christ, who is one person, to have only one will. If will were a metaphysical faculty properly predicated of a nature and not a person, we would expect that Christ, who has two natures, to have two wills. So which is it? Does the incarnate Christ have one will or two?

This question was first hashed out in earnest in the events leading up to the Third Council of Constantinople in 680 and 681. It has been dubbed “the monothelite controversy.” Those who taught that Christ only had one divine will were called monothelites (from mono-, one, and thelēma, will), and those who taught that He had two wills—one divine and one human—were called dyothelites (from duo-, two, and thelēma, will).

Maximus the Confessor

At the Council, the dyothelite case was presented most memorably by Maximus the Confessor. In aiming to prove that Christ had both a divine and a human will, he appealed to the fourth-century Cappadocian Father, Gregory Nazianzen’s well-known Trinitarian maxim: “That which is not assumed is not healed.” That is to say, whatever aspect of humanity that Christ failed to assume to Himself, He did not heal in His substitutionary saving work. Such an unassumed aspect of humanity would therefore be unredeemed and unredeemable. If Christ was to heal the human will (along with the rest of human nature), he must have assumed a human will in His incarnation.

Besides this,
if Christ did not assume a human will in His incarnation (as the monothelites
contended), not only is our depraved will unsaveable, but it’s difficult to argue
convincingly that Christ was/is genuinely human. Genuine humans have human
wills! Monothelitism isn’t just an arcane dispute about a meaningless point of
doctrine; it undermines the genuine humanity of Christ altogether. This was the
conclusion of the Council. Monothelitism was condemned as heresy and dyothelitism
was established as the orthodox teaching of the Church.

Now, if
Christ assumed a human will—which He must have done for the sake of our salvation—then
He had two wills, both divine and human. And since, as we said, Christ is one
person with two natures, both divine and human, it’s fitting to conclude that will is a metaphysical faculty
properly predicated of a nature and not a person. Christ’s two
wills match up with His two natures, and do not match up with His being a
single person. If will were a property of person and not nature, since
Christ had two wills we’d have expected Christ to be two persons, which of
course He is not. Christ had two faculties of willing: one divine and one
human.

Now, besides
all that, I’d argue that most of us
already implicitly know that will is a property of nature and not person. When
we engage in the debate over the bondage and freedom of the will and issues of
man’s depravity, we explain the reality that apart from regenerating grace man’s
will is free to make choices but not to choose rightly. He’s not an automaton
unable to choose between alternatives, but he is depraved, unable to choose
righteousness. He has a will, but his will is bound to act in accordance with
his… what? With his nature. See? Even
without the monothelite controversy we know that will is a property of nature.

One Nature, One Will

So, since
the Godhead is three persons fully subsisting in the single undivided divine nature,
and since will is a predicate of nature and not person, there are not three
faculties of will in the Godhead by virtue of the three persons. Instead, there
is one faculty of will in the Godhead by virtue of the one nature. Consubstantial
persons—that is, persons who share an identical nature, and thus an identical
faculty of will—cannot submit
to one another. The single divine will cannot be “subjected” or “subordinated”
to itself. If there is to be submission, there needs to be another faculty of
will.

And that
faculty of will is added through the Son’s incarnation. The incarnate Son,
since He takes on a human nature in addition to His divine nature, also takes
on a human will as a predicate of His human nature. Now, this One Person,
Christ, subsists in two natures—the hypostatic union. Therefore, He has two faculties
of will. Now with the “hardware” needed for submission—i.e., a human will—He
can now subject His human will to the divine will, and say things like, “I have
come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me”
(John 6:38), and “Not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42). But before His
incarnation (in eternity), the Son subsisted only in the single, undivided divine
nature, and therefore possessed only the one divine will. He couldn’t subject
His will to the Father’s will because it was the very same, identical faculty
of will.

Alternatives
to Orthodoxy

Now, if you reject this line of argumentation and embrace EFS, there are three alternatives that you must choose from.

First, you could wrongly embrace tritheism. That is, you could rightly conclude that will is a property of nature, but wrongly insist that each divine person has His own faculty of willing, and therefore that the Father, Son, and Spirit have three distinct natures. This is obviously not an attractive position.

Second, you could wrongly embrace monothelitism. That is, you could wrongly conclude that will is a property of person and not nature, and thus explain that three wills in the Godhead only means that there are three persons in the Godhead and not three natures, or beings. But in this case you’d have to deny that Christ, who is one person with two natures, had a genuinely human will, which is fatal to the genuine humanity of Christ and therefore fatal to the Gospel itself.

Third, you could rightly embrace both monotheism and dyothelitism, but wrongly insist that will is a property of person and not nature. In this case, you’d have to explain, if will is a property of person, and if Christ had two wills, why He is not two persons.

None of these alternatives is acceptable to the teaching
of Scripture. Whether in one area or another, the necessary entailments of EFS undermine
key biblical doctrines of theology proper, Trinitarianism, or Christology.

If the nature of submission requires multiple faculties of will, and if as a property of nature two wills requires two natures, there can be no eternal relations of authority and submission within the Trinity without positing multiple natures in the Godhead. Therefore, EFS must be rejected if biblical Trinitarian orthodoxy is to be consistently affirmed.

Conferences can be a great way to recharge one’s spiritual batteries. They provide needed opportunities to be encouraged in ministry, rest from the battle, fellowship with like-minded believers, and bulk up on your theological resources. Now and then we like to feature a few of the many encouraging conferences. Here are a few that might be of benefit to you:

Courageous Churchmen & Ekklesia

From February 5-7, Grace Immanuel Bible Church in Florida is holding their fourth annual leadership conference called, “Courageous Churchmen.” The conference seeks to equip church leaders for the various battles of local church ministry. GIBC created this conference in a unique way, structuring several slots of time to discuss general sessions together.

Speakers include
Jerry Wragg, Jon Anderson, and Matt Waymeyer, all pastors at GIBC. A few meals
are provided. And the dinner is worth double the price of registration alone.

The theme of the conference is, “The Pastor in the Pulpit,” with sessions covering topics such as the anatomy of a passionless sermon, preparing your own heart for the pulpit, avoiding hypocrisy in your preaching, what makes a man a useful vessel in the pulpit, why men deviate in their study, how to protect your study time and avoid the distractions that come in our information age, why some men can skillfully draw out implications and others cannot, preaching the divinely-intended meaning and structure of the text, how a hypocritical heart ruins his hearers, and how to make sure you are faithful in-season and out of season.

Considering the need for those in church leadership to address such issues, along with the warm fellowship you will receive at GIBC, this conference is a huge blessing. You can register here at a very reasonable price.

Immediately following Courageous Churchmen, GIBC will host their annual Ekklesia Conference, February 8-10. This year’s theme is, “God Speaks to His Church.” In addition to the Courageous Churchmen speakers, Ekklesia will feature Phil Johnson, Paul Lamey, and George Zemek. More info and registration details can be found here.

The conference seeks to equip Christians in areas of practical biblical living. Last year’s theme was, “Walking in Wisdom.” Next week’s conference will have the theme, “All for the Gospel.” Looking at the apostle Paul’s example, speakers will preach on living a life that is governed by a passion to see souls converted to Christ.

Speakers include John MacArthur, Austin Duncan, Kurtis Massey, Eric Davis, and Andrew Gutierrez. The Master’s University has generously made this conference free of charge to those who are not current TMU students. The conference is also typically live-streamed. More details are available here.

3. The Shepherd’s Conference

Finally, there is the conference of all conferences. In case there are still a few out there who have not heard of it, there is the annual Shepherd’s Conference, hosted by Grace Community Church, during the first week of March. This year’s topic is faithfulness in ministry over the long-haul. As this coming February marks John MacArthur’s 50th year as pastor of Grace Community Church, it’s a fitting topic.

The speaker lineup is about as good as it gets. On top of that, Bob Kauflin and the Gettys will lead music. Attendees are typically sent home with a box of complimentary books having a value near the price of the conference. And, attendees are typically given a gift certificate to the gigantic bookstore. Finally, you will likely eat an amount of tasty food in the equivalent of the registration. With some 1000 members of Grace Church serving you all week, the care and love is amazing.

This is a conference you won’t want to miss. The fellowship, food, equipping, and resources are simply unbeatable. You can register here.

]]>221874https://thecripplegate.com/conference-previews/Three Reasons to Never Say “I Would Never Do That”http://feeds.thecripplegate.com/~r/TheCripplegate/~3/C61RxKfiWkI/
Tue, 08 Jan 2019 08:05:24 +0000https://thecripplegate.com/?p=221870

I was thinking recently about how many times I’ve thought or said, “I would never do that.”

In our day and age, it is a popular sentiment, especially as we look back in history to head-scratching things people have done, and wonder in our minds what in the world were they thinking?

We tend to have pride that our generation is better and wiser and dismiss past generations entirely because of things that we perceive as being unforgivable beliefs and actions. But, hopefully, this sentiment doesn’t make its way into our churches, let alone our hearts.

While looking back at history and the people around us, it is good to desire to never partake in the sins we see but it is the height of pride to think that we are better or that we would never sin in the same way.

When you look at people around you, especially those whom you believe are sinning, it is imperative that you never say, “I would never do that.” Galatians 6 is clear about the importance of never uttering such words. Here are three reasons why.

It is prideful against God

Keep watch on yourself “…for if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.”

Paul, as he gives instruction on how to help a brother or sister caught in sin, stresses the importance of humility. He warns about prideful thinking as we look at a fellow Christian in sin. This would also be true with an unbeliever as well. Paul warns the believer to have a low view of self.

The Christian life is a life of humility. It is so important to understand this. It is the mindset that “were it not for the grace of God I would be capable of unspeakable evil.” People who embrace faith alone should not be comparing themselves to others at all—that is what false works-based systems do that are steeped in prideful outward actions. Instead, we are to think lowly of our own flesh and our ability to produce anything righteous at all.

It is perilous for your sanctification

“…Each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.”

Pride comes before the fall.

So many times I get incredibly angry with people around me for the same things that I do on a consistent basis. When someone cuts me off on the street, I’m tempted to think, “This guy

needs to die!” When I cut off someone, “They had it coming!” We are all potential hypocrites and we have to be so careful in how we analyze the sins of those around us and before us.

Part of the issue is that we have eyes, we know biblical truth, and we are called as believers to help our brothers and sisters in Christ in their sanctification. But, we must be so careful. My tendency is to assume the worst of others while giving myself the benefit of the doubt, but it should be the other way around.

Having the right perspective of your potential for sin will aid you in your sanctification.

It is pejorative toward others

“Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness…”

When you realize just how sinful you are, and just how dangerous sin is, you now have the right perspective as you help those around you. Arrogance and disdain are not good ingredients for proper confrontation. It will not lead you towards gentleness. Rather a proper perspective–one that hopes the best of those around you–will lead you towards the spiritual clarity needed to properly help those around you.

It is simply absurd to look back at history with a prideful eye. There is so much we owe to those who came before us. There is so much to learn from church history. Of course, we should learn balance and we should learn from mistakes. But we should be careful to make sweeping judgments when we deal with other people. There are, of course, black and white issues where we should never compromise, but sometimes we allow our preferences, or even our perspectives, to cloud our understanding. We must strive to either understand or to remain silent. It is also dangerous to look at people around us caught in sin and think to ourselves any prideful thought. It will keep us from being able to truly help them, and it will cause us to become arrogant and lead to great danger in our spiritual walk.

Let us humble ourselves, thank God for His mercy in protecting us from sin and for surrounding us with His word and His people, and let us humbly help those around us by bearing their burdens.

]]>221870https://thecripplegate.com/three-reasons-to-never-say-i-would-never-do-that/Bit-by-bit Bible Reading Planhttp://feeds.thecripplegate.com/~r/TheCripplegate/~3/Ta3cIeFXnWM/
Mon, 07 Jan 2019 08:01:00 +0000https://thecripplegate.com/?p=221863One week into 2019 and I’m guessing some of us are already behind in our yearly Bible reading plan. If you’re like me, getting one or two days behind in January can be discouraging enough to want to call the whole thing off.

That’s what happened to me last year. I had an ambitious 10-chapter-per-day plan to get me through the whole Bible twice, and the New Testament three times. But this plan also meant that missing a day or two made catching up a major undertaking.

After falling behind and catching up, and repeating that cycle a few times, I shelved my plan… but not my Bible. Instead of insisting that I complete all ten chapters every day, if I could only do two or three, then I did only two or three. And if I skipped a day or two, I just picked up where I left off. The result: I got through the whole Bible…once.

That feat was not as satisfying as the former plan would have been. But it had the advantage of being realistic and realized.

The principle I learned is that the task was more enjoyable and effective when tackled by simply chipping away bit-by-bit, without the crippling guilt and self-loathing of falling short of a particular, overly ambitious plan.

The mascot for this approach to achieving goals is Frenchman, Michel Lotito (1950-2007). You may know him by his delightful sobriquet, Monsieur Mangetout (pronounced mun-jê-toot), meaning “Mr Eats it All.”

Mangetout made his living as an entertainer. He would lay his hungry eyes on an impossibly indigestible object, say a bicycle or a bed.

And then he would eat it.

He consumed huge quantities of indigestible material, including metal, glass, and rubber. (Though he complained that eating hard-boiled eggs and bananas made him ill.)

In his illustrious career Mangetout downed the following items (these figures might seem hard to swallow, but I’m really not making any of this up)…

Yup, you read that right. Over a period of two years, he ate ground up portions of a Cessna 150, one kilogram (2.2 lbs) at a time.

Between 1959 and 1997 Mangetout ate nine tons (20,000 lbs) of metal. How did he accomplish such an amazing, albeit bizarre, feat? He simply took it one little piece at a time until he had addled his way through his goal.

He also guzzled copious amounts of water, the occasional splash of olive oil to lubricate his gullet. He would grind the object into manageable pieces, often mixed with other more user-friendly substances.

When reading the Bible you need to keep the goal in mind: to know God’s will, to grow in maturity, to fuel sanctification, and to enjoy closer intimacy with your Savior. These pursuits are anything but unappetizing.

Break the project into manageable, realistic chunks, and chew away unceasingly until you achieve your goal. Perhaps a deadline is too stifling. Just keep track of what you have read. Consider varying the genres and serving-sizes.

If you get discouraged that you have missed a few days or even weeks, just be thankful that (like metal, glass, and rubber) the word of God doesn’t go stale. You can just pick up where you left off and get back to your steady diet of healthy spiritual food.